The invention concerns a method of strip mining coal or other minerals by way of continuous-operation winning equipment with a cylindrical winning tool that excavates strips with a more or less rectangular section, whereby the rectangle is approximately as wide as the tool and no higher than half the tool's diameter as the equipment advances and whereby the equipment is connected by a system of conveyor belts to a loader that deposits the excavated minerals onto a face conveyor that can be shifted more or less parallel to the direction the equipment moves in.
Coal is generally strip-mined by removing the overburden with power shovels for example and excavating the deposit with bucket or bucket-chain excavators. Stackers return the spoil, the overburden and the rest of the material that contains no coal, to the coaled-out district.
What are called continuous surface miners have also been employed recently to strip-mine deposits that contain semihard materials. These machines are advanced versions of loaders and ditchers. The material is loosened by the ditching wheel, picked up by shovels, and transferred to webbed-belt conveyors at the rear. Continuous surface miners are mainly employed for hard and brown coal, although they can also be used for bauxite, sand, and clay schist.
The continuous-operation winning equipment recited in the German Application P 3 920 011.6 is of the continuous surface-miner genus.
The object of the invention is to provide a method of strip mining wherein continuous surface miners, especially winning equipment of the type described in the aforesaid German application, can be practically employed. This mining procedure is intended to ensure exploitation of the district as cost-effectively and thoroughly as possible.